Madelon eBook

The mixed blood of two races, in which action is quick
to follow impulse, surged up to Madelon’s head.
She drew the hand which held the knife from under
her cloak and struck. “Kiss me again, Burr
Gordon, if you dare!” she cried out, and her
cry was met by a groan as he fell away from her into
the snow.

Chapter IV

Madelon stood for a second looking at the dark, prostrate
form as one of her Iroquois ancestors might have looked
at a fallen foe before he drew his scalping-knife;
then suddenly the surging of the savage blood in her
ears grew faint. She fell down on her knees beside
him. “Have I killed you, Burr?” she
said, and bent her face down to his—­and
it was not Burr, but Lot Gordon!

The white, peaked face smiled up at her out of the
snow. “You haven’t killed me if I
die, since you took me for Burr,” whispered Lot
Gordon.

“Are you much hurt?”

“I—­don’t know. The knife
has gone a little way into my side. It has not
reached my heart, but that was hurt unto death already
by life, so this matters not.”

Madelon felt along his side and hit the handle of
the clasp-knife, firmly fixed.

“Don’t try to draw it out—­you
cannot,” said Lot, and his pain forced a groan
from him. “I’ll live, if I can, till
the wound is healed for the sake of your peace.
I’d be content to die of it, since you gave
it in vengeance for another man’s kiss, if it
were not for you. But they shall never know—­they
shall never—­know.” Lot’s
voice died away in a faint murmur between his parted
lips; his eyes stared up with no meaning in them at
the wintry stars.

Madelon ran back on the road to the village, taking
great leaps through the snow, straining her eyes ahead.
Now and then she cried out hoarsely, as if she really
saw some one, “Hullo! hullo!” At the
curve of the road she turned a headlong corner and
ran roughly against a man who was hurrying towards
her; and this time it was Burr Gordon.

Burr reeled back with the shock; then his face peered
into hers with fear and wonder. “Is it
you?” he stammered out. “What is the
matter?”

But Madelon caught his arm in a hard grip. “Come,
quick!” she gasped, and pulled him along the
road after her.

Madelon faced him suddenly as they sped along.
“I met your cousin Lot just below here and he
kissed me, and I took him for you and stabbed him,
if you must know,” she sobbed out, dryly.

Burr gave a choking cry of horror.

“I think I—­have killed him,”
said she, and pulled him on faster.

“And you meant to kill me?”

“Yes, I did.”

“I wish to God you had!” Burr cried out,
with a sudden fierce anger at himself and her; and
now he hurried on faster than she.

Lot was quite motionless when they reached him.
Burr threw himself down in the snow and leaned his
ear to his cousin’s heart. Madelon stood
over them, panting. Suddenly a merry roulade of
whistling broke the awful stillness. Two men
were coming down the road whistling “Roy’s
Wife of Alidivalloch” as clearly soft and sweet
as flutes, accented with human gayety and mirth.